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00:00Welcome to Mojo Plays and today we are getting out our calculators to work out who lost the
00:12most.
00:13These are the 10 most expensive video game flops ever.
00:16There are a lot of reasons a game could lose money, budget too big, sales too small, management
00:20too poor, bringing a game from development to consumer is a costly affair and these guys
00:25didn't handle it well.
00:27Before we continue, we publish content all week long so be sure to subscribe and ring
00:31the bell to get notified of our latest videos.
00:3540 million, this is Vegas.
00:44One of the fastest ways for a video game to suffer a massive financial loss is to be cancelled
00:49before completion, cutting off the chance to save any of the costs with sales.
00:53A prime example of this is Midway and Surreal Softwares This is Vegas, an open world action
00:58adventure game that reportedly burned through 40-50 million dollars in development costs.
01:04Once more let me say that, 40-50 million.
01:08The cancellation happened just one year after the games trailer and screenshots were released
01:12with plans to launch on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
01:15Although there is justified speculation, the reason for the cancellation has never been
01:19fully explained.
01:2250 million, Darksiders 2.
01:40Let's move on to a game that actually released.
01:43Darksiders 2 is a hack and slash action adventure game that at the time of its development was
01:48considered one of the most expensive video games ever made.
01:51I'm sure you've heard of it, but chances are you probably didn't play it.
01:54Two years after the game failed to achieve widespread success, the Nordic Games CEO criticised
01:59its budget as ridiculous, stating, we can produce a product of the same quality at a
02:03lower cost.
02:0450 million dollars is just absurd, I can't afford that.
02:09Can't afford 50 million dollars?
02:11You mustn't be doing that well.
02:12Remain.
02:13A warrior's life is never easy, old one.
02:16Aye, not easy, but simple.
02:1952 million, The Secret World.
02:23The choice is yours, remember this.
02:30Be mindful of the voices.
02:31Listen to the voices that whisper in your sleep.
02:35In 2012, EA and FunCon invested heavily in The Secret World, and when I say invested
02:40heavily, I'm talking heavily, and if you aren't aware, MMORPGs are one of the hardest genres
02:45to gain continued commercial success in.
02:48The game was ambitious, but actually well-received, but as expected, it struggled to compete with
02:52the established titles like World of Warcraft.
02:55At launch, the game sold only 200,000 copies, resulting in a 52 million dollar loss in sunk
03:01costs.
03:02Just to put that 200,000 copies into perspective, World of Warcraft's 2020 expansion, Shadowlands,
03:07sold 3.7 million copies on day one.
03:10I don't know if you know this, but 3.7 million is a lot more than 200,000.
03:2570 million, Shenmue.
03:33Your son, I'm alright, but Hazuki-sensei…
03:41My father?
03:42Sega's highly ambitious open-world action-adventure game Shenmue had a development cost of over
03:4870 million dollars between 1999 and the year 2000.
03:52The budget was spread across these years, with part of the budget going towards the
03:55creation of Shenmue 2.
03:57You might not expect Shenmue to have been a financial failure, because ironically, while
04:01the series is now celebrated as one of the greatest games of all time, it only sold 1.2
04:06million copies, and fell far short of recovering its massive production costs.
04:10I think the financial failure was worth it.
04:12But I'm not as good as father was.
04:2480 million, Defiance.
04:31Trion Worlds MMO third-person shooter Defiance was just one of those games that struggled
04:42to gain traction among gamers, even with a marketing boost from its tie-in sci-fi TV
04:47show.
04:48A real boomery kind of marketing technique if you ask me, what is this Skylanders?
04:52The game took 5 years and over 80 million dollars to development, but its downfall was
04:56largely attributed to a shift in its business model after launch.
05:00Just as a paid title in 2013, Defiance switched to a free-to-play model in 2014, significantly
05:05reducing its ability to recoup its massive budget through direct sales.
05:10And switching to a free-to-play after only a year on the market is never a good sign.
05:2290 million, Halo Titan.
05:25As one of the most popular action franchises in gaming history, it's no surprise that
05:29a massive amount of resources went into developing an ambitious MMORPG created by Ensemble Studios
05:34between 2004 and 2007, often referred to as Halo Titan or Project Titan.
05:40Much to everyone's disappointment, the game was cancelled before completion, leading to
05:4490 million dollars in losses for the studio with no chance for financial recovery.
05:50As the precursor to Halo Wars, Halo Titan remains shrouded in mystery more than 15 years
05:55later.
05:56I just want to know one thing, can I have some of that 90 million?
06:0080 to 100 million to human.
06:16Trapped in development limbo for a decade, Microsoft and Silicon Knights action RPG to
06:22human ended up costing an astronomical 80 to 100 million dollars before its lukewarm
06:27release in 2008.
06:29The game's lengthy development cycle involved a serious first for game development which
06:34included multiple platform shifts, from PlayStation to Gamecube to Xbox 360, each incurring hefty
06:41expenses.
06:42The only console it didn't touch was the Xebu.
06:44Enhancing its troubles, a legal dispute over the game engine led to a recall, which further
06:49hurt its reception.
06:50To human sold only about 700,000 units, which was good enough for a regular game, but not
06:55for one that had been in development for more years than GTA 6.
07:00100 million, APB All Points Bulletin APB All Points Bulletin took an astonishing
07:1715 to 20 years to development, which is too many years.
07:21During this time, the project amassed a staggering 100 million dollar budget, which realistically
07:26isn't that bad for two decades, but still way too hard to recoup.
07:31Despite the extensive development period, the game launched feeling incomplete and failed
07:35to impress both gamers and critics, ultimately leading real time worlds to declare bankruptcy.
07:41In the end, APB couldn't recover from its enormous costs and its servers were shut down
07:45in 2010, the same year it was released.
07:48I know you already know that, I just wanted to dig the knife in further.
08:00200 million, Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League
08:03The most recent entry on this list is Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League, an action shooter
08:18released in 2024 as a spin-off to the popular Batman Arkham series.
08:22Joint MCU style universes in video games needs more exploring, but this is an unfortunate
08:27cautionary tale.
08:28The game was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews, with many players viewing it as a
08:32hollow cash grab despite its high production value and polished visuals.
08:37Critics and fans alike criticised its unnecessary implementation of live service elements, which
08:42made it feel like a slot machine at a casino, rather than a satisfactory game.
08:54Concord Consider this entry 1.5, because these videos
09:03can take a bit of time to come out, so between writing and video editing, a beautifully tragic
09:07game by the name of Concord released, so instead of getting rid of the 10th entry and moving
09:12everything up, I'm just going to squeeze in an extra one.
09:14Try and stop me Mojo!
09:16Please don't fire me.
09:17At the end of August we saw one of the most abysmally marketed games of the last 30 years,
09:23With 700 concurrent Steam players on launch day, the game was estimated to have sold less
09:27than 25,000 copies.
09:30That should cover their budget right?
09:31Oh wait, they spent $400 million dollars.
09:35I don't need to tell you guys this, but 25,000 copies doesn't get you out of a $400 million
09:39dollar hole.
09:42Arguably Billions, E.T.
09:54The Extraterrestrial
10:05Often blamed for triggering the video game console crash of 1983, Atari's release of
10:10E.T.
10:11The Extraterrestrial is widely considered the biggest video game disaster in history.
10:15Although the exact financial loss remains uncertain, Atari reportedly spent $20-25 million
10:21just to secure the movie rights, a figure that, adjusted for inflation, equates to approximately
10:26$56-70 million dollars.
10:28When adding development costs, the total becomes even more staggering.
10:32We all know this story, undersold by millions, cartridges buried in a desert, nearly destroyed
10:37the entire industry and caused billions in losses for companies that weren't even associated
10:40with them.
10:41It's just a damn mess, and I for one will probably never stop talking about it.